Search configuration in applications

The "Search" application element can be used to quickly and easily configure a search function in applications.

Each search configuration within applications can be switched to the global search, which is executed across the entire portal via an additional control in the "Design" module. Further information on the global search can be found here.

Here you can see the "Search" element on the workspace of an application. It consists of the search field, a search button and a table in which the search hits are displayed.

The "Search" application element can be found in the "Elements" area under the "Search and navigation" category.

"Search" button action

The search is initiated by the "Search" action when a configured button is clicked.

In the properties dialog of the button, you can define the search configuration, the search field and the type of result display on the "Actions" tab.

The action type "Search" must be selected here.

Options

Configurations

Select the desired search configurations here.

Edit search configuration

Opens a dialog where new configurations can be created and existing configurations can be edited.

Search configuration selection

"Available" list/"Selected" list

All selectable or selected search configurations are listed here. The search configurations can be moved from one list to the other with a double click or by using the arrow buttons.

Moves search configurations from one list to the other.

Add Search Configuration/ Edit Search Configuration

Opens a dialog for a new search configuration or in which an existing search configuration can be edited.

Search configuration properties - "Search" tab

General

Title

Enter the title for the search configuration here. Click here for information on multilingual titles.

Data group

Select the data group that contains fields you wish to activate for the search.

Weight

Here you can specify how search results should be arranged within the overall result. Use these criteria to specify the importance:

  • Very low

  • Low

  • Medium

  • High

  • Very high

Use in portal search

Activate the search configuration for the global search here, which is set across the portal. The data is searched in both the system application "Global Search" and the additional control "Search" in the "Design module".

Search in tags

If this setting is enabled, values that are created with the Tagging - Bookmarks element are included in the search.

Provide suggestions

Here, you can define whether search suggestions should be provided or not. This setting overrides the corresponding setting in the "Tools" module that defines the portal-wide standard.

Filter search suggestions

There are three modes to choose from here:

  • Server standard

    The setting is based on the corresponding setting made in the "Tools" module.

  • Enabled

    Turns the filter on.

  • Deactivated

    Turns the filter on.

Search languages different from the portal standard (the default language is highlighted in bold)

Displays a list of all portal languages with the default language highlighted in bold.

Add search language

Opens a dialog where a new search language can be specified. The values of the data fields that you specify in the lower area of this dialog are indexed in the specified search languages. In the browser, the user can decide which language should be used for searching. Depending on the language chose, different search result lists will be displayed.

Remove language

Deletes the language selected from the list.

Default language

Makes the highlighted language the default search language, the search will initially be performed in this language.

Configure data fields to be displayed

"Application" column

You can see the data group, which you selected at the top of the dialog, with its contained data fields.

"Search" column

Select the fields here that should be searched through. Click on each of the check boxes in the Search column.

"HTML" column

If a long-text field is included in the search, with this setting HTML tags in the text will be interpreted and only the real content will be searched through.

"Index name" column Name"

With this setting, the file name of the files attached to the record will be indexed.

"Word analysis" column

With the "Word analysis" setting, the content of the field will be divided into its parts. If a field contains multiple words (such as "This is an example"), then the index search for "example" will only find the data record if "Word analysis" has been selected.

"Facet" column

Click here for more information.

Edit filter

Opens a dialog where a filter for the data group selected in the bottom area can be defined.

Please note that when changes are made to the search configuration, the index will be reassembled; this can lead to an increased system load.

Search configuration properties - "Display" tab

By view page

With this option, a page, which has been designed with the appropriate elements, can be selected that will be used to display the search results.

  • Displaying page

    Select a page that will display the search results on desktops.

  • Displaying page (file)

    Select a page that will display the file results on desktops.

  • Displaying page (mobile)

    Select a page that will display the search results on mobile devices.

  • Displaying page (mobile, file)

    Select a page that will display the file results on mobile devices.

The page selected here should contain appropriate links or buttons that will load the corresponding content when the user clicks on a result.

Simplified

Here, a default page, which Intrexx will generate automatically, will be used for displaying the results.

  • Link destination

    Select a page to be loaded when a result is clicked on.

  • Link destination for mobile devices

    Select a mobile page to be loaded when a result is clicked on.

File results rendering

Standard

The default page is used for displaying file results with this option.

  • Show record fields

    Additional file attributes are displayed with this setting.

Custom VM

With this option, the name of a rendering VM can be entered. This will be used instead of the default variants for file hits.

Custom VM for record hits

With this option, the name of a rendering VM can be entered. This will be used instead of the default variants for record hits.

Create a subfolder (e.g. custom) for custom VMs in the portal directory internal/system/vm/common/search/result and copy the VM files into this folder. Enter the relative path with the file name in this dialog (i.e. custom\my.vmi).

Configure data fields to be displayed

At the bottom of the dialog the fields can be selected that will be displayed on the simplified hit pages.

"Application" column

The data fields that should be shown can be selected here.

"Title" column

If this checkbox is activated the field's content will be shown in the heading of the hit.

"Text" column

If this checkbox is activated the field's content will be shown in the text of the hit.

The order of the fields can be modified with the arrow buttons.

Search configuration properties - "Ranking" tab

"Application" column

The application and the data groups contained in it are shown here.

"Weight" column

The weight ("Very low", "Low", "Medium", "High", "Very high") can be determined for each of the data fields.

"Metadata" column

In this column, "Author" or "Date" (metadata) can be assigned to one field at a time. Basically, these are flags that define the semantics of a field. The result varies depending on the value:

Date: the assigned field

  • can be used as a weighting criterion for the order in which results are displayed. Newer records are then weighted more heavily and are placed higher up in the results list. However, this is not synonymous with exact date sorting. Control whether the field is used via the default search settings or by changing the settings.

  • can be used as a sorting criterion. Control whether the field is used via the default search settings or by changing the settings.

  • is used by the default search results display.

Author: used by the default display for search results.

"Boost through content" column

A data field, which contains integers (e.g. 1 - 10) and has the integer data type, can be selected here. The value selected for the data set influences the weight in the ranking.

Delete search configuration

Deletes the currently selected search configuration.

Duplicated search configuration

Opens a dialog in which the settings of the currently selected search configuration are adopted so that a duplicate can be created and, if necessary, edited.

Click "OK" to save the changes and close the dialog.

Search field

Select the element which should be used as the search field here.

Number of search results

Here, determine the maximum number of results which should be displayed in the results table.

Ranking

Select your preferred ranking method. As well as the hit score, meaning the hits with the highest quality, you can also include the date weight; this means that the newest hits will receive a higher ranking. By selecting "Portal default", the settings from the "Tools" module are used.

Sorting

Specify the sorting of the results here. The sorting has more weight than the ranking method, i.e. the selected ranking method might not be taken into account.

  • Portal default

    The settings from the "Tools" module are used.

  • By ranking

    Sorts based on the selected ranking method.

  • By date

    Sorts by date.

  • By application priority + ranking

    Sorts by how often applications that contain the results are used and the ranking.

  • By application priority + date

    Sorts by how often applications that contain the results are used and the date.

  • By application title + ranking

    Sorts by the title of applications that contain the results and the ranking

  • By application title + date

    Sorts by the title of applications that contain the hits and the date

  • Individual

    The sorting "Custom" is used for user-defined settings.

Search strategy

The settings from the Tools module are used.

Edit search strategy

Opens a dialog where the search strategy can be configured.

Query strategy

Exact search

With this strategy, content will be searched through using the entered search term.

Wildcard search

Enables you to search using placeholders, e.g. * for any amount of variable characters or ? for one variable character.

Fuzzy search

When using the fuzzy search, the exact character sequence does not need to be entered as the search criteria. Similar character sequences will also be found. Similar character sequences will also be found.

Use the arrow button to move the desired query strategy from the "Available" list to the "Selected" list in order to activate it.

Then click on "OK" to save changes and close the dialog again.

Show search settings

In the browser, a button will be displayed which allows you to make additional search settings.

You can define which options are available here in the "Tools" module and in the search configuration's settings.

Show search tabs

Search tabs are links beneath the search field which are configured for special searches, e.g. search for users. With the setting "Show search tabs", search tabs that have already been defined will be shown in the browser.

Enable creation of search tabs

With this setting, the link "Tab options" will be shown in the browser, which allows users to create new tabs.

Tabs created in the "Default settings", which is only accessible by administrators, are available to all portal users. In the "Personal settings", the tabs are only available to the user who created them.

Enter a title for the new search tab. In the search field you can search for search configurations, for which the current user has sufficient permission, across the entire portal. To do that click on "Search".

Furthermore, search configurations from the current application can be activated by selecting the corresponding control box. The tab can be set as a mandatory tab for all users.

With the setting "Floating arrangment", the results will be arranged next to one another.

If individual tabs have been created, these will be shown beneath the search field. If you click on a tab, the search configuration configured for it will be used for the search.

Enable moving of search tabs

With this setting, the order of the tabs in the list, which is reached via the link "Tab options", can be modified.

Drag the tab using this symbol to the desired position.

The following applies: the higher a tab is in the list, the further it will be shown to the left in the browser.

Show search suggestions

Here, you can define whether search suggestions should be provided or not.

Show search filter

With this setting, the facets (categories), which you can assign to the application's data fields in the search configuration, and tags - will be shown next to the search results, if the search is configured for tags and a tag result is clicked on.

Search results are shown beneath the facet to which the result is assigned. Clicking on this result will filter the results list. In the system application Global search, the applications, where the results were found, will be listed here as well. With this setting, you can select whether the facets should be shown positioned to the right or left of the search field and results.

For technical reasons, facets are unfortunately not subject to permission checks. Therefore, users can potentially see facets, which were generated in an application and which they do not actually possess read access for, during the search. This however has no effect whatsoever on the display of the search hits. The user's permissions are always checked before the search results are shown.

Result options / Show result list in

Table

Select the table where the search results should be shown here.

Click on search result

  • Main page

    For this option, the content of a result will be shown on a main page of the application.

  • Tooltip

    For this option, the content of a result will be shown in a tooltip.

You will also reach this dialog if you select the

"Search" action for a completely normal button. In this case, you must put together any elements that are required for the search. Among others, you will require an empty group to show the results. Group an element of your choice and then drag it out of the grouping onto an empty position on the workspace.

Application properties - Search configurations

All search configurations that occur in the application can be managed in the properties of an application, which you can access via the application node.

Active

This setting activates a search configuration. Inactive search configurations are not taken into account when searching in the browser.

Portal

With this setting, the search configuration is available for the portal-wide search.

Weight

Current weighting of the search configuration for the ranking. Clicking on a weight in the column opens a drop-down list from which another weight can be selected.

Add search configuration

Opens a dialog in which a search configuration can be created.

Edit search configuration

Opens a dialog in which the search configuration can be edited.

Delete search configuration

Deletes a search configuration.

Duplicated search configuration

Opens a dialog where the settings of the current search configuration are already entered so that a duplicated can be created.

Table for search results – Properties

Provide the table that displays search results with a title. Information on this multilingual title can be found here.

More information

Settings in the "Tools" module

General

"Search" application element

Additional control for the portal-wide search in the "Design" module